~ A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you … John 13:34

Local churches?

Now I may be wrong (it’s been known), but what I’m reading suggests that the infamous Synod is likely to result in what I’d call the ‘Orthodox option’ – by which I mean power being delegated to local churches to make what the Pope would call ‘pastoral decisions’. On the surface that’s sensible enough – except, as the Anglicans found out, if you have one local church saying you can have a gay bishop marrying his chum, and another one saying that is heresy, you have a bust up, not two brother churches getting along in amity. Perhaps no one at the Vatican knows this?

If this is where it’s heading, the results will be the same as in Anglicanism. The Africans and Asian will stick with what the Church has always taught, the Europeans and the Americans (some of them) will look for ingenious ways of doing what their society demands. The Africans and Asians will continue to see their churches grow, the Americans and Europeans will see a shrinkage, and in the end the latter will, as C commented to me in an email, end up sending missionaries to re-evangelise us.

But what, in all this, of the Pope? Seems to me that there won’t be much need for him. If each local church can do as its bishops decide, then they don’t need an umpire – especially one who has a problem judging – after all, that’s what an umpire is for, and if he can’t, or won’t judge, then there’s no need for the fellow.

That would open up interesting vistas in terms of Christian unity. One might expect to see the dwindling local churches of Europe finding some syncretistic formula that would allow them to unite to service their vanishing congregations – which would probably vanish even more quickly. That would allow those churches where there are orthodox believers who take the historic creeds seriously, to evangelise, with the help of the African and Asian churches, which, let’s face it, have vocations to spare. Within a generation or so, the United Church of tolerance of everything, would be down to a basement in Ecclestone Square, and the others would be expanding by evangelisation.

So, who can tell, for all the doom-mongering, perhaps rambling Pope Frank is following a path which will allow the progressives to expire slowly in their unholy huddle, and leave the way clear for orthodoxy to triumph. It’s all very well to have clever plans, but the Holy Ghost will lead, and he may well lead Pope Frank to a place where, all appearances to the contrary, he ends up doing something necessary. It would allow the Vatican II ‘spirit’ to die slowly whilst inoculating the rest of the Catholic Church against it.

You have it about right my friend. The worrisome bits are leading a Church effectively, with true authority, or divesting the authority to a meaningless divergent mess: true papal authority, true magisterial authority whilst remaining free from clericalism and pope worship. It is a fine line that the faithful must navigate and a the Church must lead the way.

As to your bit of consolation, I thank you. I suppose one can say that every crisis in faith has served in the end to strengthen the Church though we are still grappling with the spirit of VII fiasco. It does seem overwhelming at times. One can say that this Synod has exposed the Cardinals for what they each believe or more importantly, what they don’t believe.

It is a remarkable message. Good thing she felt driven to deliver it and that she was given both a platform and an audience. Why, it’s almost as if there are good things coming from the Synod at precisely the moment when the most people are paying attention… how strange.

Can’t be too sure as to what the final direction will be my friend. They can go from bad to good, or good to bad as Joan of Arc found out: but for the first time in our history the people have the ability to receive news and information almost in real time.

Will the Synod Fathers respond or change their attitudes from a single speech? Let’s not count our chickens before they start.

I’m sure if Rosica had any idea of what she was going to say, she would have never had the chance to speak . . . judging from the way he has changed rules on the fly to the benefit of the German Cabal and their supporters. We shall see at the end of this: next Sunday is the grand finale.

Yes, with folk like that there’s always hope. The Africans and Asians will be innoculated, and can come save our descendants when the last of our national bishops dies with no one to hand anything on to±

Or it could be that he disease of infected the Western Church will eventually spread to Africa and Asia: see what the Episcopalians have wrought in the Anglican Church. It could go either way, I’m afraid.

Don’t think it could, what I’m reading says its an outcome of state churches in Europe (Both RC and Protestant) and a secular elite in N. America. I’m trying to distill a bunch into a post or two, without losing the sense of it. 🙂 Not that I have much!

I doubt they would all be exactly alike though it does seem (already) that the jettisoning of traditional teaching is spreading far and wide . . . and we too are now wrestling with what the Anglicans have already wrestled with and lost. I’ll look for you piece, NEO. It might give ua another bit of insight into this contagion.

That’s my problem as well and couldn’t possible distill effectively what was said by so many other writers that I have been devouring these last months. I’m even having a hard time keeping all the shenanigans straight much lest digesting, pondering and distilling the information into something that would fit into a short post.

Indeed not. For there are alot of details and nuances that stem from whatever this outcome is . . . and, in fact, there is much damage in my mind already just in those who are so ready to hand over the teachings to a practice that is not derived from teaching but from worldly ideologies. That is disastrous and shows how much housecleaning is needed among our hierarchs.

So were a number of past failures of the Petrine office. Papolotry is not virtue. It is OK to call a spade a spade. Do you think it is right to put men with ideas such as Cupich and Danneels, with their homosexual leanings, to decide on family issues? Was it right to gag Cardinal Erdo and remove the Cardinal Burke or Archbishop Cordileone who are faithful to the teachings of the Church? Did you read the article? Can you not exercise your judgement on such things . . . or is it that since the person that was involved is the Pope that it must be God’s Will? Sorry, not everything Popes do is worthy of their position. Everybody wanted this Pope to be magnificent but when this stuff continues unabated it is time to ask yourself some hard questions and at least entertain the possibility that this is not one of the Popes that the Church is going to brag about. He may enter the annals as Honorius and some of the other embarrassments we have had. In our lives we have been blessed and have grown complacent as if, it could never happen now. Why not?

Luisa, QVO made 3 statements, any one of which you could have addressed. But, what you do is rise up behind that wall, take a shot, and begone. You’re a sniper. You snip. You aim to kill, maim, and harm without having to expose yourself.

Now this is the perfect post to learn what we do here. We all know that we have NO authority! That we aren’t going to change much. That the Pope will probably not take the time to respond on this blog. But, we talk with each other. We present ideas and welcome others. If we don’t agree we state why and then listen. It’s called dialogue. We used both rhetoric, and as you can see on this post, dialectic.

So, your question to QVO, “And who and what exactly are you?”, really has no relevance. Ideas have relevance. Present yours, agree or disagree with others, or get out of the way.

Is the implication here that unless you are a ‘prominent Catholic’ your views don’t count? Perhaps read what Jesus had to say on how the Father regards all his children. Or, to adopt your own tone, are you just another snob? If that seems rude, so did your comment.

He is not a sedvacantist. He was, at one time, but now believes that this Pope is validly elected . . . so how does your comment square with the truth? Even so, are those who do not accept the Pope non-entities? We have had invalidly elected Popes before and we even have the words of Danneels that he was part of a group that pushed for the election of Francis. If it were proven that the election was rigged and campaigned for: then, guess what? We would be living in a sedevacantist Church just like the period in-between Popes. Everyone is worth listening to and we can learn why they believe as they do if we keep our ears open and ask probing questions of them.

At best, he’s a tool in the hand of others, at worst he is what you say he is; either way, the sonner he goes the better.

Either way, he is about to make himself redundant. Hopefully the Africans and Asians can be inoculated against our sickness and, when we are wiped out, come back and re-evangelise us. That will be easier when Quisling Nichols and the rest of the Vichy regime at Ecclestone Square have died out.

There is a bit of hypocrisy in all this talk on concilliarity that seems to confound all theories at this point. For instance, shouldnt the USCCB have been allowed to send their own representatives to the Synod? Yet, this concilliar pope scrubbed the conservative bishop from San Francisco and replaced him with the wildly progressive bishop from Chicogo (which he, himself, appointed). So he wants to decentralize and in order to do it, he is using every bit of power at his disposal. The same could be said as to his ‘hand picked’ leaders and writers of the documents that will ensue.

It is more than that. These Bishops’ conferences are a novelty, and there is no historical ground for believing they have any power at all – historically the power lies with the Bishops, not some conference – so your point weighs even heavier than you might have thought 🙂 I am sure C will confirm.

Yes, Geoffrey, you are quite correct. I am not even sure that the Conferences have standing in Canon Law. MY understanding is that they are purely administrative conveniences – and, alas, bear some of the marks of public conveniences.

My understanding is that they do not though Bernardin tried to take the novel idea from VII and make it more authoritative . . . so much so that during Bernardin’s life you could hardly be made a bishop without his support. But the Bishops do not agree with one another and though they were able to ‘pack’ the vote for Communion in the hand standing, which had failed multiple times, it was cajoled during the absence of the more conservative prelates. They did much the same with female altar servers. But they don’t make doctrine and they have more often than not created factions among our bishops and given us confusion rather than direction.

Yes, checking with a friend who knows more about these things, he confirms we are correct. These are admin conveniences with no official standing. There is no reason a bishop could not refuse to have anything to do with the thing! (And many why he should do just that!),

Indeed. For I know for a fact that Bishop Bruskewitz would not attend, listen or be influenced by what came out of the USCCB . . . probably the only reason he was never an archbishop or cardinal. They have no clout unless the Pope tries to give it to them: and even then . . . where would he draw the prerequisite teaching to do so?

I’d be interested in your take of the video I posted, C. 🙂 Your historical background would be welcome in this aspect of the social change all around us: for it seems that what is going on in the churches these days is but an extension of the change agents that come from the Frankfurt School.

BTW: I would be interested in your historical perspective on the video I posted. Seems to me that much of our social and ecclessial problems might have roots in the same bunch of change agents that the Frankfort School has given us over the years: Obama and crew as well as the leanings of our Church at the moment. If you get a chance, let me know what you think.

I’m sure nobody’s expert here, but the appearance kind of that the Bishop’s conferences were 9are an event to avoid the hierarchy of the archbishoprics. Just seems like they do much the same job, really.

I’m not susceptible to insomnia, but when I read the Pope’s statement about papal decentralization, I was tossing and turning most of the night. I was arguing with him and trying to explain calmly and rationally that it could never work, but I’m not sure he was listening. 😦

No it surely won’t Grandpa. Just keep praying. Maybe Christ is awaiting another 100,000 prayers before He steps in. Yours or mine might be the last two prayers needed to effect a new direction other that the disastrous one that we seem to be on.

"I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend." J.R.R. Tolkien <br>“I come not from Heaven, but from Essex.” William Morris